Exhibition of the week
I Object
Subversive art from Gillray to Banksy, ancient Egyptian obscenity to a suffragette song, dug up in the British Museum by Private Eye editor Ian Hislop.
British Museum, London, 6 September to 20 January
Also showing
Staging Jackson Pollock
A look back at the great American artist’s British debut at the Whitechapel in 1958.
Whitechapel Gallery, London, 4 September to 24 March.
Harold Ancart: Freeze
Chilled-out paintings of blue icebergs floating on silent black seas.
David Zwirner Gallery, London, 31 August to 22 September.
On Collecting
A delve into the archives of the renowned Panza collection of contemporary art.
Hauser & Wirth, London, 4-15 September.
Joe Tilson at 90
Recent prints that meditate on the architecture of Venice by this far from exhausted veteran.
Alan Cristea Gallery, London, 1-22 September
Masterpiece of the week
William Hogarth – Marriage-a-la-Mode I: The Marriage Settlement (about 1743)
Hogarth cruelly mocks the pretensions and hypocrisy of the upper classes in this painting that also satirises art itself. While a proud aristocrat with cash-flow problems agrees a marriage deal for his son with the daughter of a City of London merchant, the hapless young people in question sit passively. This is clearly not going to be a happy marriage. The grandiose chamber in which it is brokered is lined with European oil paintings including one that resembles Caravaggio’s Medusa. The monsters and violence in these posh pictures not only bode ill for the young couple but in Hogarth’s eyes manifest amorality. As if infected by their lewdness, a lawyer is quietly seducing the wretched bride, whose affair with him will end in blood and death.
National Gallery, London
Image of the week
A photograph of a woman holding her baby daughter has been shortlisted for one of the world’s most prestigious photography awards, the Taylor Wessing prize. The image taken by Enda Bowe shows Cybil McAddy holding her daughter Lulu in Clapton, east London.
What we learned
Brussels has put Bruegel on the back burner
Girlguiding badges have undergone an eye-popping redesign
Dundee’s V&A aims to reconnect the city with its past
Historical heroes now decorate Bristol’s streets
Cornelius Gurlitt’s Nazi-looted art hoard includes a Henry Moore
Literary tattoos are all the rage in Melbourne
Australia wants world heritage status for the Burrup peninsula …
… where locals warn of industry and acid rain
Helsinki’s underground art hub is a €50m triumph
The new Atlas of Design is a cartographer’s treat
Ian Hislop is fully in support of dissent
‘Bookstagramming’ is changing the face of publishing
Oran Z’s lifelong collection black Americana is under threat
Damien Hirst’s former manager has been feeling generous
No one fancies paying for a portrait of Farage
The National Portrait Gallery has been miscounting its visitors
Six nominees are up for the year’s ugliest new building …
A lovers’ muckaround ended up as an iconic noughties album cover
Jess T Dugan’s photos are breaking transgender stereotypes
John Ruskin is back with a vengeance
Goldsmith’s has unveiled a labyrinthine new art gallery
This year’s Portrait of Britain is a diverse delight
Krishna Reddy was a masterful printmaker and teacher
Don’t forget
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